


Building mountains, splitting hairs

by Merixcil



Category: 2NE1, YG Family
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 01:50:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/920572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chaerin takes a step out of the shadows</p><p>Also on  <a href="http://rixythewraith.livejournal.com/1803.html">livejournal</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Building mountains, splitting hairs

New York rain paints rivers on the pavement and in them Chaerin sees every city she’s ever loved. The Sein scutters through cracks in the paving slabs to form the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame and all those other places that she’s proud to say were too much like tourist traps to be worth her while. It’s ok though, because the Arakawa cuts a neat line through four rows of traffic whilst the Pearl River tries to double back on itself as it pours from the gutter, recalling memories of Tokyo Tower and Victoria Harbour.

The Han dashes down the road and into the drain without so much as a passing wave. Good. It will join with the myriad other sewage this city has to offer and run away, never to be seen again. Chaerin wishes she could say the same for herself, but tonight she must settle for the satisfaction of knowing that this city is as much her home as any other. And honestly that’s more depressing that she’ll ever let herself realise, fragments of half a hundred lives leave her hanging on the edge of a solid identity that vanishes altogether when you look too close and see the shoddy stitching that holds four languages, twenty two years and more cities than she can count together in a poor attempt at diversity. Like everything else, it feels like she’s faking.

Identity is something you can fake easily. You don’t need designer clothes or expensive jewellery or lights or camera or action, but she’s got to admit it helps. 

Catching a cab is easier than people say it is, it could be that she’s pretty enough to warrant the extra attention or it could be that when she climbs in and starts talking he’s over excited to be picking up a ‘Chinese’ girl. She starts to tell him about Shanghai and what a real skyscraper looks like but after half a breath it’s obvious that he doesn’t really care. 

The city flashes by in a sea of lights that aren’t as impressive as they think they are, painted over by the reflection of a girl who looks uncomfortably like she’s not wearing any make up. 

‘Where are you? Sajangnim’s going out of his mind’ Dara’s text reads and Chaerin wonders if she’ll work out just how far apart they are before she sees her phonebill. She deletes the text before she has time to feel guilty and shuts off her phone in time to remember that Seoul cannot touch her here. She catches her reflection in the darkened screen and sees insecurity and exhaustion. She tries to correct herself but remembers that the only confidence she ever had was in imitation and the act is rotting out her soul.

The problem is that it’s reflexive, every step she takes from the cab to the club dripping learned swagger and false nonchalance and the only satisfaction she can take in that is that even now, it still works. She sees awe in the eyes of the bouncers as she prances past them and experiences a familiar second hand smugness that displaces whatever genuine emotion she had managed to set brewing below paper thin skin. It’s difficult not to wonder what kind of person would be walking through New York City in her shoes tonight had she been made in her own image, but then again, it’s difficult to imagine that she believes she can be anything else. 

The heavy beats and flashing lights of a New York basement feel more authentic than those of an Inkigayo stage and that makes Chaerin stumble. She feels too fake to be here, strutting to the bar in Versache, Dior, Galliano, Givenchy and remembering that not one of those is a name she picked out for herself, the entire façade indirectly put together by someone who doesn’t even realise that she’s doomed to follow in his footsteps till contract termination do them part. The bartender looks her over like she’s a mannequin.

Vodka. Neat. Two shots. Down in one. Chaerin feels much better. 

She knows how to draw attention and it comes easier to her when she’s not trying. The crowd parts for her as she takes to the floor in heels twice the size of the Chrysler Building, every gaze touches her sooner or later, whether they want to or not, as she bends her body into rhythm and beats, drum and bass, hip and hop, whatever it’s just music. 

The packaging is what’s really important. 

Like repackaging slurred words and lazy beats into a copy of a performance that only worked with better production and the courage of your convictions. Chaerin has courage in his convictions, but hers are only ever the sum total of what he leaves behind. It’s pathetic; she used to be so sure of who she was. 

“Can I get you a drink?” an unfamiliar American accent breaths into the curve of her neck. It doesn’t really seem necessary right now, because the night’s young and she’s not drunk and she’s already ready to go home with him, let him slip fingers under designer lingerie in the taxi and rip the whole mess off in his bed. She leads him by the lips to the ladies and is mortified to find that it’s her hands that wander. 

“Who are you copying?” she wants to whisper to the spot beneath his ear that makes him shudder as she bites it, instead she says too much, mutters something indistinct about a shadow she’s never worked out how to escape and a sense of value defined by how completely she can mimic an original’s every move. When the time comes for tearing clothes and the shedding of her costume she’s greeted with nothing more than the awkward stretch of her tights around her thighs as he lifts her up and fucks her against the door. 

There’s no satisfaction in sex, no magical moment of epiphany or sudden apparition of true love. It’s sticky and it’s messy and sometimes she forgets why people even bother. She pulls up her hosiery and makes to leave. The hand on her wrist lets her know that he wants her to stay, entirely unexpected and very much welcome. He starts to tell her about a little place he knows down the street that does the best New York cheesecake and she remembers that she plays the part of the Bad Girl and wonders if she could break his heart. 

She wants him to persuade her that it’s a good idea, wants to look back on this moment and understand that she couldn’t have done anything else. But he pulls her in with clichéd one liners and vague rambling’s about destiny. It’s not destiny, it’s a quick fuck in a toilet that could turn into a quick fuck back at his place and if it wasn’t served up with a side of cheesecake it would look entirely unappetising. 

“I’ve gotta go,” Chaerin says with what she hopes is a sad smile that he returns. He’s got a nice smile, and pretty green eyes that look like spring meadows from a romantic trope. She’ll never know what a guy like him is doing picking up one night stands and then taking them out for cheesecake. 

Back at the bar she fends of the drunk and the drunker, sliding ever deeper into the bottom of a whiskey bottle as she goes. By the time she’s had enough for a boy with an Italian accent to slip a hand around her shoulders the world could slip away and she wouldn’t even notice, she’s sort of hoping it will. 

Foreign lips fumble through proposals of unappealing sex in unsanitary places and Chaerin has no idea why it felt so good earlier and feels so wrong now. There is an unpleasant lurch in her stomach that she recognises (just barely) as her breaking character and before she can pick up the pieces she’s tumbling through years of suppressed insecurities and self doubt.

“There’s a hundred other girls in this place just as drunk as me,” she manages, leaving out ‘so go fuck one of them why don’t you?’ The look he gives her throws shivers down her spine, his eyes stripping her naked for all to see, she knows that all he really notices is arse and tits.

“Don’t compare yourself to these sluts baby, you’re one of a kind.”

She can’t get away from him fast enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I get really REALLY sick of the whole 'CL is the female GD' thing because honestly she deserves to be defined on her own terms. I originally intended this to be rather more empowering but it took an angsty turn and I can't imagine how demoralising it must be to live your life trying to fit someone else's concept, so this is what I wound up with.


End file.
